


Babysteps, Skipping Steps, and Missteps

by Trixree



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Anxiety Attacks, Bisexual Character, Feminist Themes, Genderfluid Character, Hurt/Comfort, Liz Allan never moves away, MJ is amazing, Nonbinary Character, Penelope Parker - Freeform, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma, Women Being Badass, everybody needs a hug, family themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-05-30 18:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15102446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixree/pseuds/Trixree
Summary: Shortly after the arrest of the The Vulture, Spiderman takes on some of the greatest evils of them all.Including, (but certainly not limited to), one's own personal demons, the gender binary, unaddressed emotional trauma, insomnia, the bullying epidemic, and the illegal Chitauri weapons distributors scrambling to fill the newly created power vacuum in the criminal underground.Also, there's this new, non-arachnid-themed vigilante running around. Someone should probably figure out who that is.





	1. After (Capitalized, Italicized)

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate universe fic exploring what would have happened if Liz Allan hadn't moved away after the arrest of The Vulture. I'm not sure how many chapters it will be yet. Also note, "Penelope" Parker will be portrayed (eventually) as a genderfluid person. For now, their pronouns will be she/her, mostly because she hasn't gotten that far in examining her own gender presentation yet. I myself am cis. If anything comes off as offensive or problematic at any point in this fic, do not hesitate to let me know.

In the dark, Liz Allan lies on her side and stares at the wall. This is very out of character. Liz is not a side-sleeper. In fact, Liz usually sleeps flat on her back, just like an unremarkable woman in a bland mattress commercial offering the perfect night’s sleep (for the low, low price of just eight hundred dollars!) But, she doesn’t intend to sleep tonight, so she lays on her side. 

 

On this wall, there used to be pictures. Pictures of her friends and her family-- normal, innocuous photos that every particularly sentimental teenage girl keeps around. The pictures are not there anymore. It’s just too painful. Because  _ After…  _ (And, for clarity’s sake, this is capitalized, italicized  _ After. After  _ her father fell out of the sky in a hybrid alien bird suit.  _ After  _ her father was discovered to be in the illegal underground weapons trade.  _ After  _ it was discovered that her father not only was in that particular trade, but had basically had a monopoly on the alien tech “weapons of mass destruction” market.  _ After  _ she found out her dad, Dad,  _ Dad  _ who carried her on his shoulders through Disneyland, who taught her to ride her bike, who held her when she had nightmares, her  _ Dad...  _ was a criminal. A criminal that provided weapons to other criminals. Weapons that those criminals used to hurt countless people.  _ After. _ Capitalized, italicized,  _ After. _ )

 

The morning she woke up  _ After,  _ she remembers her mother waking her up, trying to be quiet, and failing horribly. She was sobbing and clutching Liz close to her, an unfathomably pained look in her eyes as she attempted to say the impossible, to explain the impossible. Eventually, like the Allan women do, her mother steeled herself and told her one and only child that her father was a criminal. Liz remembers the disbelief that hung in her throat like the deep chill that comes the moment before a brain freeze. She remembers the numb shock that follows. Almost against her will, still sitting in bed, pressed against her mother’s side in horrible, anguished silence, Liz’s eyes drifted to her pictures. 

 

It was like pouring salt into a wound. Like raw onion in her eyes. 

 

The day that followed was a harrowing day of reporters clamoring around outside her house, of FBI agents probing every corner of its interior, of officials from Damage Control doing the same. It was a day of long, drawn out questioning boiling down to  _ did you know about your father? Did you know about what he was? _ The entire week that followed was essentially the same. 

 

Liz felt isolated. Completely cut off and separated from the world. She couldn’t leave her house. Her mother and her were trapped, grieving together for the husband and the father they thought they knew. When the Agents handed Liz her phone back, she had dozens of missed texts and calls from friends. Some said things like this:

 

_ Did you know?  _

 

_ Oh my god, Liz. What’s going on? They say your dad is a criminal  _

 

_ Are you okay? Please respond!!! _

 

And some of the texts that went like this:

 

_ I’m sorry, my parents say I’m not allowed to talk to you anymore _

 

_ How did you not know??  _

 

_ Fuck you and your whole fucking family. Do you know how much blood is on your hands??? On your whole familys hands?? Fuck you _

 

_ Don’t come back to school.  _

 

_ good thing the death penalty exists _

 

Liz turns her phone off that day. She places it in a shoe box, along with the pictures, and slides it far, far back in the corner of the top shelf of her closet. 

 

It’s remarkable, how fast everything changes. Suddenly, your father is in prison. Suddenly, your front yard is a feeding ground for reporters. Suddenly, your friends aren’t so friendly. Suddenly… suddenly, you lose your father (if you ever really had him at all.) Suddenly, everything is gone. The carpet’s been pulled out from under you and someone on some higher cosmic plane is laughing really fucking hard at your expense. 

 

So, Liz doesn’t sleep much anymore. The carpet that was under her feet is gone. It’s basically in ashes. So, Liz stares at the wall and tries not to think too hard about it. 

 

She already has a plan, after all. 

***

Elsewhere, i n the dark, Penelope Parker stares at her bedroom ceiling. There are plastic, glow in the dark stars up there. If Penelope counts the stars, she forgets to remember how tired she is. There are twelve. There used to be sixteen and one crescent moon to accompany them. If she thinks hard enough, it’s like she can almost see the faint shape of the moon, stuck there, framed in dust. Almost. If she doesn’t think, if she lets her eyes go a little unfocused, she can almost hear Uncle Ben’s laugh as he affixed the little sticky stars above her bed. She doesn’t know what he’s laughing at-- she doesn’t remember that. But she remembers the shape of his smile. The warmth of his voice. The way his careful, gentle hands pressed a mini-galaxy into her tiny bedroom. A cosmos just for her. 

 

Twelve sticky, plastic stars, faintly glowing green look down at her. Her own galaxy-- damaged, faded, and missing some bits. Figures.

 

If Penelope keeps counting the stars, maybe she’ll fall asleep. Maybe, maybe, maybe… 

She dreams of weightlessness, of falling, of floating, of the feeling of her own weight rocketing towards the ground. The city lights that twinkle around her are like stars. In her dream, Uncle Ben made those stars, too. (Just for her.) She’s falling, floating, soaring and the stars are moving with her. The stars are white and yellow, and then they’re green, plasticy-green, and then they’re red. Red like a stoplight. Red like… red like… They’re red like the spots in her eyes when her body hits the sand. Red like her raw scream as his hulking mechanical claws squeeze her chest. Red like the taste of her own blood in her mouth. She was falling. Now she’s sinking.

 

She wakes up with a strained gasp. Her eyes fly open and immediately clench shut again. Her forehead is pressed against a hard surface. Penelope pries her eyes open. Her chest is heaving. A plastic star greets her. It’s cold against her nose. 

 

“Pen! You’re gonna be late!” May calls. “And I’m gonna eat all your pancakes!”

 

By the time Penelope manages to pep talk herself off of the ceiling and down on the floor, she’s got about twenty minutes altogether to get dressed, eat, and make it to school. She grabs the first pair of jeans in sight, her phone, her favorite bright red sneakers, and the first hair tie she finds (conveniently located on top of homework she never got around to doing). 

 

“Welcome to the world of the waking, your majesty,” May says, turning around from the stove with a pan of what look like they really, truly tried to be pancakes and just missed the mark by about a mile and half. May’s face falls when her eyes land on Penelope. “Oh, Pen…” 

 

Penelope pushes out what tries to be a laugh and manages to be even more of a failure than May’s pancakes. “Well, that answers the ‘on a scale of one to  _ Oh _ , how disastrous do I look?’ question.” 

 

May sighs the sigh familiar to parents of all teenagers (except May’s sigh is a little more burdened, as in her particular case, her sigh is the sigh of the parent of a mutant spider teenager.) She sits at one of the chairs at their small, round kitchen table. It looks cramped in its little corner. It looks especially cramped with May, her not-quite-palatable pancakes, and a pile of bills. 

 

“Penelope,” May starts, and then stops. She’s speaking in the tone Penelope hates most of all. It’s the tone that usually precedes conversations like You’re Just A Child And I’m Worried About You, You’re Just A Child And I’m _Very_ Worried About You, You Fell Asleep While Eating Dinner Again, and, Penelope’s personal  _ least  _ favorite, Are You Sure You Don’t Want To See A Therapist? 

 

“May, I can’t, I-I gotta, school, ya know?” Penelope snags her latest backpack off of the chair beside her, unlocking her phone and glancing down at her lack of notifications just to have an excuse to not meet May’s eyes. “The uh-- pancakes smell good,  _ great _ , even. I’ll take one for the road.” Still avoiding eye contact, rushing around like a bee on cocaine, Penelope squeezes her aunt’s shoulder on her way towards the door. 

 

“Penelope, wait?” Penelope doesn’t need heightened senses to practically taste May’s desperation. Her anguish. 

 

“Yeah?”

 

After a long, tense pause, May says in that quiet voice she’s taken to adopting when talking to Penelope these days, “Will I see you tonight?” Penelope swallows. “You’ve been on patrol every night this week and… I don’t think it’s… Just.” The Sigh. May audibly gathers her composure. “Will I see you tonight? We’ll get pizza. Order in. Watch  _ The Bachelorette.”  _

 

Penelope feels something inside her chest squeeze tight, so tight it hurts.  _ Look what you’re doing,  _ a voice deep inside her brain whispers.  _ All the people you’re trying to save and you can’t even save her? Look at how much she’s hurting. Your fault.  _

 

“Sure. Yeah. See you tonight.” Penelope swings the front door open, sliding an earbud in her right ear. “Love you.” 

 

“I love you too.”

***

“ _ Oh heck,”  _ Penelope swears, clumsily digging her phone out of her back pocket. The screen is still miserably cracked. (Pretty much the whole phone is shot to hell and back at this point.) 

 

> **Me:** NED PLS
> 
> **Me:** N E D I NEED U 
> 
> **Me:** I forGOt a BRA aGAIN
> 
> **Handy Dandy Guy In The Chair:** gross, stop reminding me u have breasts 
> 
> **Me:** NED PLS
> 
> **Handy Dandy Guy In The Chair:** As your official side kick, I feel like I should be getting paid for this. 
> 
> **Handy Dandy Guy In The Chair:** Is the Hufflepuff hoodie okay?

 

Penelope looks down at herself. She didn’t change shirts this morning so she’s left in an old Captain America shirt where a cartoonish Cap is posed Uncle-Sam style with the words  _ I Want You... to Punch Nazis!  _ underneath in red bubble letters. It was a birthday gift from Ned himself. Her jeans are tattered and blue. Ned’s mustard yellow Hufflepuff hoodie sounds…  _ perfect.  _

 

> **Me:** Yes pls
> 
> **Handy Dandy Guy In The Chair:** No prob, SM. I gotchu 
> 
> **Handy Dandy Guy In The Chair:** Cause that’s what sidekicks do 
> 
> **Handy Dandy Guy In The Chair:** Meet me at the bathrooms by the cafeteria 
> 
> **Me:** ily
> 
> **Me:** no homo
> 
>  

Ned smiles when he sees her. That’s one thing she loves about him, he’s always genuinely happy to see her and she knows this because he is so genuinely,  _ hopelessly  _ expressive. 

 

With a theatrical flourish, he extends the mustard yellow hoodie with the Hufflepuff crest on the front and back. It’s about 5 times Penelope’s size, extending down to her knees. It’s old and a little stained with age around the cuffs of the sleeves. The strings are fraying and ratty, the color is garish and loud. But the best part, in Penelope’s opinion, is the fluffy, thick, breast-concealing fabric. (She’s a small girl. The type of small where the right sports bra pretty much doubles as a chest binder. She’s amassed a collection of said type of bras after the whole Mutant Spider Shtick. Or so she'll tell you. In reality, Penelope had already had a quite extensive collection. But there's no time to critically examine ones' gender identity when you're a vigilante. Evil doesn't sleep and superheros don't get mental health days.) The hoodie smells like Ned’s house. The smell of well-cared for plastic figurines and collectables, chai tea, and Febreeze has sunk deep into the fibers of the fabric. Penelope  _ loves  _ this hoodie. 

 

Ned giggles at her, the traitor. “Dude, you look…” He takes a slow moment to appraise her, from her very well-worn (which is a generous word for the state of them, a more appropriate descriptor might be “ratty” or “hobo-chic”)  neon red sneakers, her equally as old blue jeans (which aren’t so much blue anymore as they are an off-white), the Hufflepuff hoodie, which sits just above her knees and goes well past her hands in a weird flipper affect, and her greasy, matted hair. Ned claps a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Parker, I’m gonna level with you. You look a fucking  _ mess.”  _

 

“Neddddd,” she whines, shrugging his hand off. 

 

He sputters into giggles. “You look like a preschooler in a painting smock.” 

 

“Neddddddd!” she takes a gentle smack at him. 

 

“No, no, you know those weird potato sack things with sleeves that people put their babies into?  _ That. That  _ exact look.” Through his teasing, Penelope has tied her hair up into a messy attempt at a bun. 

 

“Hah, hah. Very funny,” she grumbles. 

 

By the time they move along to their lockers, the five minute warning bell has already rung. As Penelope hurriedly grabs some textbooks and tries to find a pencil (she doesn't have one, go figure), an unfortunately familiar voice calls out, “Hey Penis-Parker!” 

 

Flash thwaps his hand on the locker next to hers, leaning too far into her space and wafting the unfortunate scent of Axe and Douchebag her way. Penelope cringes. 

 

“You look like even more of a mess than usual. You should really wear your hair down more. You’d look less  _ mannish  _ that way.” Flash snickers to himself. “Oh, did you hear? Your little  _ girlfriend  _ is back today.” Penelope and Ned both abruptly swivel their heads to turn and actually  _ acknowledge  _ Flash, then. “Yeah, I gotta hand it to ya, I didn’t know your  _ girrrllfriend  _ was a  _ Mafia Boss’ daughter,”  _ he goads with feigned disinterest. A vibrating, near palpable aura of slime wafts over Penelope. She clenches her textbooks a little tighter. 

 

“You’re a terrible person,” Ned grumbles, like this surprises him and yet simultaneously doesn’t surprise him at all. 

 

“Didn’t know you were into  _ bad girls _ , Penis-Parker.” Flash leans forward, a disgusting smirk on his face, like the proverbial cat that got the mouse. “Now we all know for  _ sure  _ who the  _ man  _ in the relationship is.” 

 

“Fuck off, you breathing pile of Daddy-issues and shitty hair gel,” a deadpan and undeniably  _ livid  _ voice snaps from behind Flash. 

 

“MJ!” Ned and Flash both squeak in the way only a boy who is truly terrified by a girl can squeak. (It’s somewhere between the sound you get when you accidentally squeeze a mouse too hard and the sound of a dog toy hitting a wall.) 

 

“I should report you to administration for being a homophobic bag of dicks, but I won’t. Not because I give a shit about you, but because you aren’t worth the air.” Her eyes bore into Flash’s. Penelope thinks of the way wild wolves look. 

 

Flash swallows hard and makes a valiant effort at pretending he couldn’t give a damn what MJ says. He fails at conveying anything of the sort. Penelope thinks he looks vaguely sweaty. “See you in class, Penis-Parker.” He passes by them and Ned sticks out his tongue petulantly in his wake.  


 

MJ shrugs her messenger back higher up onto her shoulder. “What’s up, nerds?” 

 

Ned squeaks. 

 

“N-Nothing. Um... Thank-” Penelope starts.

 

“Don’t make it weird. He’s an asshole,” MJ swiftly walks to Penelope’s side, linking her arm through Penelope’s like a father escorting his soon-to-be-married-daughter down the aisle. She moves like a bird of prey. Penelope shoots a frantic  _ WHAT?!  _ look at Ned, who sputters like a surprised cartoon character and hurries after them. MJ tugs Penelope along beside her with a brisk, purposeful stride. 

 

In class, Penelope is near forcibly seated by MJ between herself and Ned. Penelope feels vaguely like she’s being mothered. 

 

“Am I being mothered right now?” Penelope says, because she has no brain-to-mouth filter. 

 

“Yup,” MJ says, pulling her notebook out of her backpack. 

 

Ned squeaks. 

 

“Um--”

 

“Parker,” MJ says. “You look like you haven’t slept in a month. You move like you’re injured all the time. You disappeared from the decathlon and from homecoming. You’re dropping all your extracurriculars. You’re hiding something. Badly.” Penelope opens and closes her mouth like a dying fish. 

 

Ned makes a despairing sound and puts his head down on the desk. 

 

“No! No, no. Uh--” 

 

“Parker,” MJ states, like it’s a complete thought.   


 

Penelope stares at her. 

 

“Whatever. I don’t care,” MJ opens her notebook, ostensibly, she looks occupied with something entirely outside of the concern of Penelope and Ned, like the current conversation is no more than small talk about the weather. 

 

“I… uh--”

 

“But,” MJ turns suddenly, snapping her head up to look directly into Penelope’s eyes. She thinks of wolves again, compulsively. “I am  _ not  _ going to let you get yourself killed with whatever idiotic shit you’re doing.” Penelope gulps. “It doesn’t matter if you won’t tell me, I’ll figure it out eventually anyways.” 

 

With that, the final morning bell rings, and Liz Allan walks in the room. 


	2. Shaking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liz is absolutely 100% fine. She’s A-OK. She’s just peachy. First day back at school after finding out your dad was a super criminal? Easy-peasy. Easy like pie. A pie filled with nails, shards of glass, and broken dreams.

Liz is absolutely 100%  _ fine.  _ She’s A-OK. She’s just peachy. First day back at school after finding out your dad was a super criminal? Easy-peasy. Easy like pie. A pie filled with nails, shards of glass, and broken dreams. So Liz? She’s absolutely fine. 

 

Nevermind that all of her classmates in  _ every class  _ and  _ all of the teachers  _ spent the entirety of the day staring at her with one of three looks: pitying, curious, or cautious. Cautious is the worst. Liz thought there wasn’t anything in the world she would hate more than the blank, impassive coldness of the many agents that grilled her about the extent of her knowledge about her father’s… work. She was wrong. Today, people looked at her like they were nervous to be around her. They looked at her as if she were a particularly volatile science experiment. They looked at her like alien machinery. Afraid wouldn’t be the right word to describe the look-- these people weren’t scared of Liz. They were scared of what she might do if provoked. (Scared of what she might  _ become.  _ Like father like daughter, huh?) 

 

Liz thought that lunch would be okay. She wouldn’t be forced to interact with any peers to answer any questions or collaborate on classwork. She wouldn’t be trapped in a room with prying eyes. She would be in a big, open space where anyone could disappear. 

 

Anyone but her, apparently.

 

The cafeteria is suddenly far too small. As conversations grow quiet and turn to whispers, as mouths stop chewing and purse tight in poorly hidden contempt, as everything halts around her, because of her, to  _ look  _ at her and  _ talk  _ about her, Liz finds she  _ can’t breathe.  _

 

Liz swallows and blows out a slow, mindful breath. She lifts her chin. She turns around and strides, as confidently as she can, out of the cafeteria. 

 

Liz walks, dazed, through the hallways, still holding her lunch tray, counting each breath she takes. (In for five seconds, hold for two, out for ten. In for five seconds, hold for two, out for ten.) She finds herself, of all places, in the gym. The locker rooms are always locked unless there’s a class or practice going on after that incident with those freshman a couple years ago. Similarly, the school has made the space underneath the bleachers inaccessible by stacking mats and other various equipment underneath them. Liz climbs the bleacher stairs. The sound of her sneakers on the cold metal is startlingly loud in the echoing space. Only when Liz is tucked away in the very top row with her backpack at her feet does she realize her hands are shaking.

 

She doesn’t want to eat anymore. 

 

“Just a few more hours,” she says to herself, picking at a loose string on the sleeve of her sweater. “You can do this. You can do this.” 

 

The women in the Allan family are made of steel, her mother and grandmother have said. When anything bad happens, in any catastrophe, the Allan women make a plan, the Allan women don’t dwell on the past. They pick themselves up whenever there is trouble and they make new goals and chase them twice as hard. Her grandmother was already a single mom by the time she gave birth to Liz’s mother. Her grandfather had taken off as soon as he heard she was pregnant. (“That wasn’t the life he wanted”, she can hear her grandmother say. “So he left. Nevermind it wasn’t the life I wanted either, certainly not at twenty two years old. But, well. I soldiered on. I’ve never looked back and I’ve never regretted a moment of it.”) 

 

_ After,  _ Liz’s mother had already made her plan. She had already made three plans, really. Plan A was to move back to live with Liz’s grandmother for a while until the media attention died down, work from home for a bit, and let Liz finish out senior year in another school in another state. Plan B was much the same, except Liz’s mother would not be moving back with her daughter to the elder Ms. Allen’s home. Plan B was to send Liz to live with her grandmother and for Liz’s mother to stay right where she was and try to clean up her husbands mess. She would go to the trial. She would make statements about his character, about what a kind man he was, about what an attentive husband he was, how much he cared for his family. Maybe she could ease his sentence. Maybe she could mitigate all the vitriol in the public eye. She may be angry, she may be betrayed, and devastated and every other horrible thing a person feels when the person they love wrongs them. But, as complicated as it is, she has not stopped loving him. Plan C was to stay exactly where they are, keep their heads low, and carry the fuck on. 

 

Liz, much like her mother, had a plan of her own. 

 

In Liz’s closet, next to her shoebox of pictures and her phone, is a brand new blue Jansport backpack. Inside the backpack are a brand new pair of running shoes (really good running shoes), an industrial flashlight, batteries, gloves, a wide grey scarf, thick athletic leggings in black, a large pullover hoodie in navy blue, mace, and a pair of brass knuckles. 

 

Because, well, if Spiderman can do the whole vigilante thing, why can’t she? 

 

The gym door opens with a loud bang and Liz jumps about a foot in the air. 

 

“Hey,” Michelle says, striding across the gym floor, holding a large book in one hand and a nondescript lunch box in the other. 

 

“H-hey,” Liz offers in return. In all honesty, Michelle is the first person to say  _ hi  _ to her in a normal way in a while. 

 

“Is it cool if I read here?” Liz doesn’t think Michelle has ever asked for anything in her life. Michelle always was, in Liz’s experience, the type of take-no-shit girl who does whatever she pleases wherever she pleases, never apologizes, and never asks for permission. (She certainly never asks for permission to  _ read  _ anywhere. Hell, Liz has seen Michelle read in the girl’s locker room after gym  _ in the shower. _ ) She makes the leap and assumes this is what being considerate looks like for Michelle. 

 

“Yeah, of course.” Liz smiles, but Michelle isn’t looking at her. Michelle is sitting just beside Liz on the bleachers, her back pressed against the wall, sitting with her legs pretzeled and her book cradled in her lap. Her head is bent in such a way that her bangs hide her face. Liz notes, with some embarrassment, that Michelle smells unmistakably like a human person. The type of girls Liz has always been friends with smell like Bath and Bodyworks perfumes, like lemon verbana, like cloying, overwhelming celebrity named perfumes. Michelle doesn’t smell bad, not at all. She just… doesn’t smell artificial. Something sweet clings to her clothes, maybe a nice brand of detergent, and besides that… she just… is natural. 

 

Liz wonders what brought her here. Did she look  _ that  _ bad, or is Michelle really just that freakishly observant? Or is she really just very kind? There’s no caution, certainly no pity, and… Liz doesn’t feel like Michelle is the type to be motivated by perverse curiosity. There are people that love to watch another trip and fall, who crave to experience another’s misery. Michelle just… isn’t the type. At least, Liz doesn’t think so. (And, if she lets herself think about it a little, it is really quite nice. The company. The lack of unspoken expectations. There’s no palpable questions to answer:  _ how are you holding up? Are you okay? Do you need anything? Do you wanna talk about it?  _ There’s just companionable silence and a steady presence beside her.) 

 

“You’re thinking way too loud,” Michelle says. 

 

Liz chuckles a little. “Am I?” Michelle peeks at Liz through her wild hair. Her expression says,  _ do I really have to answer that?  _ Wordlessly, Michelle reaches into her backpack (a tattered army green bag covered in buttons and pins, mostly political, some Liz recognizes as band names or album covers, some look like anime and Liz doesn’t recognize them at all.) Before Liz knows it, Michelle is extending an ear bud to her and pulling something up on her phone. 

 

“Take it,” she tells her. Her voice brokers no argument. (At the same time, Liz knows she could walk away at any moment, or just say no, and Michelle wouldn’t even frown.)

 

She puts the earbud in.

The simplicity of the song startles her. In all honesty, she thought Michelle would listen to metal or grunge but the song is just a single acoustic guitar and a woman’s voice. The singer is less singing and more of talking to a tune. The words come fast and Liz doesn’t know how the singer is tongue tied. She instantly loves it. 

 

_ “We’re just dancing, we’re just hugging, singing, screaming, kissing, tugging, on the sleeve of how it used to be. How’s it gonna be?”  _

 

By the time lunch is over, Liz’s hands have stopped shaking. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed, find me on [tumblr](http://trixree.tumblr.com/) and on [patreon](https://www.patreon.com/TrixeeWrites)

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://wizard-senpai.tumblr.com/) and my Patreon will be up and running soon!


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